Rachel Stone | Moose Music Under the Magic Moon

Rachel Stone | Baby Bear Dreaming

Rachel Stone | Moose Music Under the Magic Moon

11 May - 19 June 2016

Animals inhabit this planet alongside us: they eat, sleep, find shelter, create families, sing and communicate with each other, just like we do. Yet somehow we tend to ignore our furry, finned and feathered friends, treating them like invisible, un-important members of our greater Earth-dwelling family.

To me, animals have always seemed quite magical – mystical even – and certainly worthy of deep respect. Like many traditional indigenous people, I feel we have much to learn from them.

I also believe that we owe much to them, at the very least: wilderness in which to live, free from the ravishes of human development and destruction. Furthermore, deep in my heart, I pray that one day all animals used in farming will be given the most comfortable, nature-like and pain-free experience possible, until they die.

One only has to look into a beloved pet dog’s eyes to immediately sense that animals feel things much the same way we do. No-one deserves to suffer or be mistreated.

These paintings hark back to the precious animal characters we grew up with in storybooks and fairy tales, in the hope that we can bring some of the love and affection we felt for them to real world animals.